Aqueous Relations

By Penelope Gebhardt

Into the Deep’s oceanic markers plunge us into a speculative deep-water zone that remains largely unchartered by western science. The deep-sea or aphotic zone starts at a depth of 200 metres – the point where sunlight can no longer penetrate. This depth is a natural species barrier; it is a very cold, very dark, low oxygen, high-pressure environment that is utterly inhospitable to humans. Little is known about the complex ecosystems that have adapted to thrive in this refuge.

Bridget Hillebrand is a Naarm/Melbourne based artist whose interdisciplinary practice is concerned with time, ecologies, embodiment and place, with a focus on material relations with natural waterways and coastal ecologies. In this work Hillebrand investigates the kinetic sculptural properties of washi paper in a submersive installation where thousands of small parts constitute a mammoth whole. Hovering just above the gallery floor in the darkened space, a form echoing the hull of a V-shaped boat can be entered and circumnavigated. Like a sentient being, it responds to its environment as its fronds/feelers move with the currents of air. Tentacles of thought and affect emerge between the work and viewer, connecting us to the present and inviting us to open to different ways of seeing ourselves in response to the conditions of our times.

Into the Deep is informed in part by Hillebrand’s experiences of swimming and snorkeling in deep waters. She observes, ‘swimming in deep water evokes a visceral awareness of scale and vulnerability. It also shapes the textures, forms and processes in my printmaking, where I work with materials that respond to pressure, flow and repetition.(1)

Repetition is a method of embedding and embodying patterns that reference the building blocks of life, living cycles and the natural world. The intensive repetitive process of making Into the Deep was sustained over many months and involved the artist printing multi-layered linocuts, trimming thousands to size and carefully positioning them, creating an exchange and a tether between artist, material and place. Over three metres high and twelve metres long, its central hulk is dense with dark interlayered ribbons of paper inscribed with variant blue-black ink, while the outer areas are interspersed with lighter sections that create a tonal gradation mirroring the diminishing light of descent into the deep.

In many cultures and mythologies, the deep represents the wonder and mystery of the unknown. In the English language idioms such as being ‘at sea’, ‘out of one’s depth’, ‘in the dark’, and ‘in deep water’ imply a lack of knowing, confusion and disorientation that is perhaps akin to the experience of eco-anxiety, a term that refers to the distress caused by current and future impacts of human-induced climate change. Despite limited access to and understanding of the deep-sea, the presence of colonial settler violence is perceptible there: mining threatens the seabed, oceans are becoming acidified, plastic sways on the deep-sea floor and microplastics and forever chemicals permeate the bodies of the more-than-human others (2) that dwell there. These ecological harms are intrinsically bound with questions of social justice and structural inequality. Hillebrand’s installation hovers in the dark like a monolithic sea creature in suspension, bringing awareness to our own fluid beginnings, our interrelatedness and shared responsibilities to the deep hydrocommons.

Hillebrand’s work evokes place through embodied material relations. She often works with washi paper; the material’s exceptional qualities of delicacy, transparency and strength make it almost mercurial. Her paper is sourced from Japan, a culture with longstanding papermaking traditions. Washi is made from the bark of kōzo, the paper mulberry tree which is harvested in winter. Water is an essential element in the transformation of bark fibres into paper, as the inner bark is soaked, boiled, steamed and rinsed many times over. Hydrofeminist and posthuman theorist Astrida Neimanis writes, ‘For us humans, the flow and flush of waters sustain our own bodies, but also connect them to other bodies, to other worlds beyond our human selves.’ (3) Something of this tree-earth-water-memory-material-knowledge is carried within the paper, across bodies of land, water, human and more-than-human others to speak of and to other water bodies in vast tributaries of interconnection and exchange.

Being underwater is a distinctive sensorial experience that Hillebrand conveys through resonant modes of kinesthesis, visual form, light, touch, and sound. Sound waves can be amplified by water; it’s a better conductor than air, enabling echolocation similar to that of dolphins and whales, while magnifying our own bodily sounds. The audio composition, featuring hydrophone recordings taken at Mushroom Reef, Flinders and Monmar/Point Nepean during the artist’s residency on Bunurong and Boon Wurrung Country (4), helps situate the viewer in the depths, where their own breath can merge with deep bass notes in an abyssal imaginary.

Through refracted light and shifting shadows the work shimmers, plays. It is animal, plant, rock and water. It is the outside and the inside body. Like water, it slips between and beyond boundaries, resisting classification. Feather-like tongues shift gently on currents of air, speaking of watery origins and cosmic dark space in a perpetual return to wonder and the collective body.

Penelope Gebhardt

Penelope Gebhardt is an independent curator living on Bunurong and Boon Wurrung Country. She is the founder of Spill Projects and has worked across artist-led and commercial gallery settings and public art contexts. Penelope’s special interest is the intersection of place-specific art, ecological thinking and communities.

References 

1.  Bridget Hillebrand, email correspondence, June 3, 2025
2. ‘More-than-human’ refers to the deep entanglement of other non-human species and life systems that constitute life on Earth. It challenges human essentialism and suggests that non-human others hold their own valuable knowledges and ways of being.
3.  Astrida Neimanis, Bodies of Water: Posthuman Feminist Phenomenology (Bloomsbury, 2017), 2.
4.  Police Point Artist in Residence Program, Mornington Peninsula Shire, 30 September – 28 October 2024.